[caption id="attachment_834438" align="alignleft" width="1068"] bigstockphoto.com/Shy and timid African American student girl wearing glasses white t-shirt and jeans having indecisive confused look while answering to teacher's question in class biting lips feeling nervous[/caption]
Any true Zen guru would tell you that worry is a useless emotion. Worrying doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s like wallowing or venting. When you worry about whether or not something will happen, you do not reduce the chances it will happen. When you worry about getting something accomplished, you do not take steps to accomplish it. But, of course, not all of us have the luxury of living in monasteries and getting to meditate all day. When real life happens—life with work and relationships and friendships and family and taxes—stress happens. Worry happens. So I’m not going to tell you to stop worrying about everything because I’d be a hypocrite. But there are some things that really are shameful to spend too much thought on. Here are things you probably stress too much about.
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Whether or not your date likes you
So many of us wonder whether or not our dates like us before we even ask ourselves, “Do I even like this person?” Your only priorities when dating should be A) To get to know the other person well so you can make an assessment of them as a partner and B) To be exactly you, no editing, no filtering, so the other person can accurately assess you. You shouldn’t worry if the person likes you—if you worry about that, then you’ll end up not being entirely truthful about who you are, and be wasting everybody’s time. [caption id="attachment_707874" align="alignleft" width="420"] Shutterstock[/caption]Having an active social life
Guess what? Nobody has as active of a social life as you think they do. That friend of yours who posts new pictures from wine tasting and hitting the beach every day—not even she does those things every day. She just takes a lot of photos the rare times she does do those things and spreads those photos out over weeks on social media. And remember, your social life is for you. It should be tailored to your enjoyment and not to make anyone envious of you. If you enjoy your social life as it is, then what’s the problem? [caption id="attachment_714816" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]Being an exact weight
If you worry about being an exact weight then you will tailor your days to that weight. Should you weigh yourself one day and find you are two pounds over that weight, then you probably won’t enjoy the special dessert your friend made just for you that day or indulge in that glass of wine you desperately wanted after work. All over two pounds. Nobody can even see those two pounds, and now you just missed out on a cupcake and wine. That’s all that happened. [caption id="attachment_607563" align="alignleft" width="500"] Credit: Shutterstock[/caption]Your entertainment budget
You should set budgets so you can reach your financial goals. But once you set them, forget about them. What I mean is know they are in place, set up apps that will notify you when you’re reaching your budget limits, and just enjoy yourself. Stop feeling guilty every time you get a massage or go to the movies. If it was within your entertainment budget, then you didn’t do anything wrong. Could you have put that towards a house one day? Sure. But you already have a budget in place for that. And you may also get a raise that makes that a moot point. Or you could inherit a bunch of money from a relative. Or you could realize you don’t want a house. So don’t steal guaranteed joy from today for very uncertain events tomorrow. [caption id="attachment_620401" align="alignleft" width="500"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]This ache, that pain
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you are in perfect health. That would be irresponsible of me—I’m not a doctor. But just keep up with your regular checkups, well women’s exams, pap smears, and dentals, and if the doctor says everything looks great, don’t drive yourself crazy worrying about a weird noise your stomach made. Keep up with your appointments; let your doctors do the analyzing and the worrying. Enjoy your life when you’re told you have good health. [caption id="attachment_721837" align="alignleft" width="420"] Shutterstock[/caption]How quickly you’re achieving your goals
Are you working as hard as you can be? Are you doing everything you could be doing? If so, then worrying about how quickly you’re achieving your goals is pointless. You could not be achieving them any quicker. By worrying about this, you’re stealing from yourself the joy of being proud of your daily accomplishments. [caption id="attachment_702871" align="alignleft" width="425"] Shutterstock[/caption]Perfecting your relationship with your family
The truth is that you may never perfect your relationship with your family. Do the best you can each time you see them to have a pleasant time. You may never be best friends with your mother or sister or father, and arguing about the things that keep you from being best friends just seems to drive you two further apart. Take the interactions one at a time, and when you’re not with your family, stop stressing about your relationship with them. You can’t mend it by worrying. [caption id="attachment_723513" align="alignleft" width="417"] Shutterstock[/caption]Whether or not your relationship will last
Will you and your partner grow apart? Will your partner cheat on you? Will your values change? Will having children cause you to fight a lot? Will financial hardship ruin your sex life? Maybe. There are factors in life you cannot control. But if you worry about those things every day then I can almost certainly say you and your partner will grow apart. Why? Because you’re too lost in your world of panic to be present with your partner. Be the type of partner you are proud to be, make time for each other, and cherish each other. You cannot help whatever else life throws at you. [caption id="attachment_717848" align="alignleft" width="420"] Shutterstock[/caption]Accidentally offending somebody
If you’ve built up enough good graces with people, and your friends, family, and coworkers know what you’re about, then accidentally misspeaking once shouldn’t change anyone’s entire opinion about you. Just relax. The people who are all in on you are all in, and no one little mistake would change that. The people who would be all out over one little mistake were never in to begin with. [caption id="attachment_720938" align="alignleft" width="414"] Shutterstock[/caption]Job security
You should certainly take steps and actions to increase your job security, but so long as you’re doing that, stop worrying about it. Stop waking up each day wondering if today’s the day your company collapses. If you do worry about that, you’ll probably end up distracted, and not doing a great job on your work. That takes away from your job security. [caption id="attachment_715920" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]Visiting crowded places
Concerts, airports, subway stations—these have tragically been the sites of terrorist attacks, stampedes and more. But avoiding them all together could set you on the path of being a hermit. One day you won’t visit a concert; the next day you won’t visit the grocery store during peak hours. Or at all. [caption id="attachment_620355" align="alignleft" width="420"] Shutterstock[/caption]Your relationship timeline
So you and your partner have been together for years and you aren’t married. And most of your friends are married to the men they’ve been with for less time than you’ve been with your man. If you didn’t know that about your friends—if you could think of your relationship in a vacuum—do you feel anything is missing? If not, then who cares what other people’s timelines look like? If you feel good in your relationship then you’re on the exact timeline that’s meant for you. [caption id="attachment_699643" align="alignleft" width="468"] Shutterstock[/caption]What people think of you
The only way to have everybody like you is to be boring, bland, void of opinions and practically invisible. And even then, they don’t like you—they just don’t dislike you. Put yourself out there loud and clear. You will scare away some people, and you will attract the people you’ll come to love the most—people you would never have met if you hadn’t made your values clear. Would you rather have hundreds of mediocre friendships, or a handful of deep, meaningful ones? [caption id="attachment_623897" align="alignleft" width="380"] Shutterstock[/caption]Being original
There is nothing less original than trying desperately to be original. That’s how you end up with tattoos all over your face and a t-shirt made from old army tank tires. When you clearly try hard to be original, it screams, “There is nothing original about me so I have to overcompensate.” Wear what you feel like wearing and do the things you feel like doing. Your true original traits lie beneath the surface and cannot be construed through fashion or hobbies. [caption id="attachment_713314" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]Change
Everyone worries a lot about change. Change in their financial situation, change at their job, change in their relationship, change in their health. Change is inevitable. When we worry about it, it seems much worse than it is. When we take it in stride, we find that it’s rarely that dramatic, and doesn’t actually impact our lives that much.The post Things You Stress About Too Much appeared first on MadameNoire.